


The Family You Make Yourself

by StripedSunhat



Series: Single Father Klaus [5]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Badly, Family Dynamics, Gen, Keep fighting Gil, Klaus needs to learn there are other settings rather than 'tough parent', Pre-Canon, Why Klaus needs therapy, Why Sparks need therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 18:36:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15978077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedSunhat/pseuds/StripedSunhat
Summary: Gilgamesh needs to relearn lab safety.Except he has been shirking his studies.Obviously Klaus needs to Step In.Because there is absolutely no reason a for a lonely kid to start spending time doing anything other than studying by himself.Of course.





	The Family You Make Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> I'm alive!  
> This fic did _not_ like me. I'm going to blame that on why it took so long to write it. That, vacation and getting distracted by two other fics that were being a lot nicer to my muse.  
>  In the mean time, enjoy, hopefully it will be at least partially worth it

Klaus glared at the empty room. Gilgamesh had been good about showing up for lab safety lessons. Had. Until two weeks ago. They hadn’t had any official schedule but they’d been using the time they would have spent in the lab. As such, Klaus should have been able to enter the room to find Gilgamesh waiting for him, studying.

Should have.

Klaus shifted his grip on the box he’d brought with him. He’d thought to maybe teach Gilgamesh some board games. It would be a fun break from the reviewing that had clearly been dragging Gilgamesh down recently. And if he liked one of them they would have gained some common ground outside of the lab.

Well.

That would have to wait now, wouldn’t it.

Klaus marched back to his quarters and stowed the game back away. His son would have to learn that you couldn’t get out of responsibilities by shirking them. All that got you was less of everything else.

It was another three days until he finally saw Gilgamesh again. The empire had decided to make an extra-special-fun push towards self-destruction – again – so he couldn’t say for certain whether or not Gilgamesh has spent any time in their improvised classroom however he thought he knew the answer anyway.          “Gilgamesh. And here I was beginning to be worried you’d forgotten how to get here.” Gilgamesh winced.

“I’m sorry Father.”

“As you should be. I hope you realize that we will not be returning to the lab until I have determined you have a proper grasp of lab safety.”

“That’s not –”

“Oh? So you haven’t been ignoring your studies for no apparent reason?”

“I haven’t –”

“Lab safety is not something to take lightly Gilgamesh.”

Gilgamesh slumped. “I’m sorry Father. I’ll do better, I promise.”

“I should hope so. Now, since you’re actually _here_ , perhaps we can get some work done.”

“Yes Father.”

There was no time to bring out any of the board games after they were done reviewing for the day.

It was fine.

This was more important.

Gilgamesh would learn.

It was fine.

* * *

 

Klaus glared at the empty room.

It was empty.

Again.

He hadn’t brought any games with him this time. But he’d thought maybe, if Gilgamesh sufficiently demonstrated that he had a handle on the procedures they could cut the review short for the day and spend some time as father and son rather than experienced Spark and untrained Spark or teacher and pupil. He stomped further into the room. There must be _something_ wrong with it for Gilgamesh to avoid it like this.

Upon further inspection Klaus realized several of the books were missing. So he was in fact still studying, just not here.

Because private instruction from Klaus apparently wasn’t good enough anymore.

This pattern continued for almost a week. More books kept disappearing; meaning that there was in fact studying _somewhere_. Not that it made the room any less empty. By the time he finally saw his son again he’d taken to all but staking out the room. Gilgamesh stumbled in carrying a stack of books and notes – at least that confirmed Klaus’s theory. “Gilgamesh.”

Gilgamesh lit up when he caught sight of him. “Father!” The books were dropped onto a nearby table in his rush over to where Klaus stood. They tipped precariously threatening to fall before finally balancing out and clinging to the edge. Gilgamesh didn’t notice, beaming up at Klaus. “I haven’t seen you in days. I’ve missed you.”

“That’s probably because you’re still avoiding this room. I thought we discussed this. You are the future Baron Wulfenbach. You cannot merely give up on something because you’ve decided you’re bored.”

“I have been studying!” Gilgamesh cried. “I just haven’t been doing it in here. I’ve been taking the guides with me. So I can study all the time, not just when I can get time to come over here.”

With one hand Klaus pushed the stack of books further onto the table so that it wouldn’t pose any more danger of falling. “I see a very well-staged prop.” Then he noticed the top page of notes sticking out. He pulled it all the way out, glaring at it. “This is not your handwriting.” Gilgamesh froze. “Gilgamesh,” Klaus snapped when his son did not say anything.

“Yes Father?” Klaus redirected his stare from the notes to his son. Gilgamesh knew full well what he wanted to know.

“Whose notes are these?”

Gilgamesh craned his neck to peer at the papers. The fact that he could not (or _would not_ ) answer Klaus without checking it over first did not sit well. “Theo.”

Theopholous DuMedd. Lucrezia’s nephew. That was almost as bad as Sturmvoraus. Could Gilgamesh not find one person to interact with that wasn’t born and bred of the worst of the world? Was that too much to ask for from his son? “And why, exactly, do you have a page of Theopholous’s notes?”

“We were going over it together. Some of his notes must have ended up mixed in with mine,” Gilgamesh said, fiddling with his sleeve and resolutely not looking at him.

“And when I go over all of these notes I’ll only find your and DuMedd’s handwriting?”

Klaus waited. “There might be some of Z’s”

And Zâmî Yahyâ Ahmad Ibn Sulimân al-Sinhâjî. Better than DuMedd he supposed.

Except for the part where he lied about it.

* * *

 

There were voices coming from inside the room as Klaus walked up to it. On one hand that meant Gilgamesh was in fact actually in the room, but on the other, who would be in there with him? Klaus put on a burst of speed, coming the edge of the doorframe just as the other person spoke up again.

“Den go.” It was Dietrich. Of course it was Dietrich.

“It’s not that simple,” Gil’s voice shot back, sounding petulant. “I have to review lab procedure.”

“Books vait better den peeple. Dey’ll still be here vhen hyu get beck.”

“Maybe…”

Klaus strode into the room. Dietrich was in fact in the room, leaning casually against the far wall. Gilgamesh was in the middle of the room surrounded by books on fire safety and evacuation procedures. One of which he was in the middle of closing.

“Son.”

“Father!” Gilgamesh shot up in his seat. The book slammed back open.

“Herr Baron!” Dietrich all but chirped before either of them could say anything else. “De Generals. Dey vanted to talk vith hyu. As soon as possible. Now eff hyu ken.”

“They can wait,” Klaus said, already turning back towards his son.

“Dey really do vant to see hyu,” Dietrich said, pushing himself into Klaus’s line of vision, between him and Gilgamesh. “Never gud to keep generals vaiting. Hy ken go vith hyu.” He grinned at Klaus, smile guileless but eyes as sharp as his teeth.

Klaus stared the jäger down. “They. Can _wait_. If you’re really that concerned you can go tell the Generals I will meet with them _later_. For now I have other things to do. I suggest you go take care of what you should as well.”

Dietrich dipped his head in acknowledgement. Turning towards the door he stopped in front of Gilgamesh, crouching down. “Tink about vhat hy say, yah?” he said, ruffling Gilgamesh’s hair. When Gil nodded Dietrich ruffled his hair again before standing up and finally leaving.

“Where were you going?”

“I –” Gilgamesh started, clearly planning on _lying_ , before apparently rightly deciding better of it. “I was going to go down to the school and use their workspace to practice flask handling techniques.”

“The only thing the school can offer is inferior equipment and distractions.”

“None of the equipment on the ship is inferior,” Gilgamesh retorted.

Klaus merely raised an eyebrow rather than concede the point and let Gilgamesh derail the conversation.

“You need to learn _proper_ lab safety. Which you can’t do if you insist on practicing where there is no sufficiently qualified oversight to correct you when you get something wrong.”

“I’m sorry Father.”

“And Gilgamesh.”

“Yes Father?”

“One of the points of studying here rather than the school is to avoid distractions. It should go without saying that that isn’t accomplished by chatting with a jäger.”

“Yes Father.”

Klaus straightened his shoulders. “Good. Now, lets see how much your new – strategy – has moved us back.”

Whatever this new pattern was that was forming with Gilgamesh, Klaus did not like it.

He’d have to work harder to correct it.

* * *

 

For the next few days it seemed like Klaus’s talk had finally gotten through. Gilgamesh actually behaved.

But when Klaus walked into the room less than a week later to find it empty less than a week later he knew something had to be done.

The next morning he forcibly cleared the rest of his day. Then he went down to the school, straight to Gilgamesh’s classroom. The teacher, Othmar, broke off halfway through his sentence. “Herr Baron!” he squeaked. His eyes darted frantically around in what Klaus could only assume was panic. Behind him his assistant fell off of his stool. Klaus made a mental note to replace him as soon as possible, or at the very least transfer him outside of Gilgamesh’s sphere of influence. His son should not be interacting with such gross incompetence let alone be taught by it.

“Herr Othmar. Don’t mind me. I thought I’d see how the students were doing.”

Othmar gulped. “So you’ll be sitting in the entire class?”

“Indeed,” Klaus said, tuning him out as he scanned the seats for his son. “Carry on.” There he was. Gilgamesh was tucked away in the back corner, far away from the teacher and everything he was supposed to be learning.

“Herr Othmar,” Klaus said. Maybe a touch sharply based on the way the instructor jumped.

“Y-Yes, Herr Baron?”

“Is this where the children always sit?”

“I-In this classroom?” his assistant stuttered.

For a long moment Klaus merely stared at him. He’d assumed the man was an idiot, but he had not expected him to be that stupid. He wasn’t actually sure anyone could expect that level of stupid. He really needed to put more effort into culling the school overseers and replacing them. “In this _configuration._ ”

Othmar had buried his face in his hands. “I apologize Herr Baron. He usually only handles manual labor around the school.”

“Manual labor.”

“The students can be very… energetic at times. Lots of things get broken.”

Klaus nodded. He vaguely remembered seeing requisition reports to that effect. He really should read them more carefully. “Did you assign these seats to the children?”

“No, Herr Baron.”

“They picked them themselves.”

“Yes, Herr Baron.”

“And when exactly did you decide to let the future of Europa stagnate?”

“What?”

“Have them change desks.” Othmar’s eyes got very large. He whipped his face over towards the children.

“Um, uh…” He turned back to Klaus. Klaus folded his arms and adopted the expression that Bill had once dubbed his ‘your idiocy increases exponentially every second’ face. It had been funny when it had been a joke between the three of them, something Klaus only pulled out every few months. Now it was just effective. Othmar snapped back over to the children again. “You heard the Baron. Everyone stand up and find a new seat.”

The students all clamored to gather up their things and find new seats. Klaus watched impassively. “In the future I suggest you rotate the seating arrangement more regularly.”

“Of course, Herr Baron.”

“It will give the students a chance to consider their priorities.” He stressed the last word, watching as Gilgamesh flinched slightly on it. Good. He had understood what Klaus meant then.

After a few minutes the students had rearranged themselves and settled down. Gilgamesh, Klaus was pleased to note, had found seat in the very front of the class.

Directly to Gilgamesh’s right was DuMedd and directly behind him was Al-Sinhâjî. Klaus scowled instinctively before he realized what he was doing and smoothed his face out into impassiveness. He waved to Othmar to resume the lesson and settled back against the wall. For the next several minutes class continued, although Othmar and his assistant kept shooting increasingly frequent glances over at him. Honestly. Klaus was more than capable of playing nice. How had he let someone so spineless around his son? He let his mind drift, reviewing everything he would have to catch up with after the class finished. There was a loud, grating scraping sound. The sound snapped Klaus out from where he’d been… glaring intensely in the direction of DuMedd and Al-Sinhâjî. Huh. He hadn’t even realized he still been glaring.

Gilgamesh had pushed his chair out from his desk. The teacher didn’t say anything as Gilgamesh stood up. “What are you doing?” Klaus demanded. Gilgamesh didn’t answer. In fact he pointedly ignored Klaus as he scooped up his already gathered supplies. He awkwardly juggled the pile in his arms as he walked the few steps over to the desk immediately to the left of him where Sleipnir O’Hara was sitting. “Gilgamesh.” Gilgamesh nudged O’Hara with his shoulder. She apparently understood the unspoken order as she scrambled to gather up her own things. Once she had them in her arms she stood up, scurried past Gilgamesh and slid into the seat of his abandoned desk. Gilgamesh waited until she was seated before dropping into the desk she’d just left. He pulled out his textbook, reopened it and dropped his head until there was no conceivable way for him to make eye contact with anyone, even accidently.

He did not look up for the remainder of class.

When class ended, Gilgamesh snatched up his still gathered things and was immediately out of the door. A handful of the other children, including DuMedd and Al-Sinhâjî, scrambled to follow. Klaus ignored Othmar and his soon-to-be-fired assistant as he strode out of the room after him, intent on catching up with his son and demanding an explanation.

“Gilgamesh!” A young female voice yelled. “Wait up!” It was O’Hara. She was chasing after Gilgamesh, along with DuMedd, Al-Sinhâjî and Yurkofsky. Klaus pulled back a few steps, still well within earshot but far enough away for the Gilgamesh and the other students to not notice his presence. “I can’t believe you did that,” O’Hara said when as they caught up to him.

“What were you thinking?” Al-Sinhâjî demanded.

Gilgamesh shrugged, ducking in on himself. He mumbled something at the floor that was unintelligible from Klaus’s distance. Yurkofsky threw his arm around his shoulder, tugging him up and against his side. “Don’t listen to him. He was just afraid the Baron was going to kill you.”

“We all were,” DuMedd chimed in.

“He wouldn’t have killed me,” Gilgamesh mumbled.

“I don’t know about that. Obviously you didn’t fully register that death stare. “I swear he was glaring right at me.” DuMedd shuddered. “It was scary. I never want that look directed at me again.”

“I kind of deliberately avoided looking up the rest of class for that exact reason. If I’d looked at him he probably would have pulled me out of class right then and there.”

O’Hara blinked. “Oh yeah, that’s right, you got caught in some explosion in one of the labs a couple months ago, didn’t you? The real labs upstairs, not the dinky school ones.”

“What where you even doing near the labs anyway?”

Gilgamesh glanced away from them, gaze fixed on the nearest wall. “Nothing. Just… exploring.” Klaus _really_ needed to teach his son how to lie better.

DuMedd slid in next to him grinning. “Meaning you were sneaking around where students aren’t supposed to be.”

“Oh man,” Yurkosfsky said, shaking his head. “I can only picture what it was like when the Baron caught you.”

“And based on the way you keep ducking out of the school you’re still sneaking around aren’t you?” O’Hara said.

Yurkosfsky shook his head. “Oh man, you are crazy.”

“He has to be, to pull the stunt he did today.”

Gilgamesh blushed. “Someone had to try something. He was starting to freak out the teacher.”

“It had to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” Al-Sinhâjî said.

“Or the bravest,” DuMedd countered.

“How did you know that it would work anyway?” Yurkosfsky asked.

Gilgamesh looked away again. Combined with his still not entirely faded blush it probably looked more like embarrassment to the rest of the children than lying. “I didn’t. I just figured he was glaring over at me so I should try something.”

“He went from distractedly glaring in your direction to pointedly glaring right at you.”

Yurkosfsky smacked Al-Sinhâjî on the arm. “Next time you can be the one to distract the Baron when he’s angry.”

“Next time?” DuMedd said, suddenly looking very anxious.

“Well yeah,” O’Hara said. “You didn’t think that would be the end of it did you? Gilgamesh challenged his authority.”

“In front of _everyone_ ,” Yurkosfsky added almost gleefully.

“I didn’t –” Gilgamesh began.

“Oh no, you totally did.”

“I bet this is just the beginning. The first chapter in the saga of your fight with the Baron.

_“What!?”_

“Oh yeah.” O’Hara leaned in, throwing her arm out into the air. “ _Gilgamesh Holzfäller verses the Baron: a battle of wills that will span across the ages and the continent._ It’ll be great!”

“No way!” Gilgamesh yelled, shoving her away. For a second Klaus thought his son had finally seen sense and was going to leave. Instead he stayed rooted to his spot, stammering almost incoherent denials.

“Relax Gilgamesh, we were only joking,” DuMedd said, putting a hand lightly on Gilgamesh’s shoulder “No one expects you to be _that_ crazy.”

“Come on,” Al-Sinhâjî said, “let’s get out of here. Word’s probably already gotten to the staff and I do not want to be there when it reaches Madame Von Pinn.”

“She’s scary,” Gilgamesh said.

“The man does have sense!” DuMedd loudly declared. “I bet word’s reached the kitchen staff. Gilgamesh could convince them to give us extra sweets.”

Gilgamesh blinked, head swiveling as he looked around at the rest of them. “I don’t think –”

“You just faced off against _the Baron,_ ” Al-Sinhâjî said. “That’s a traumatic experience.”

“He’s not that bad,” Gilgamesh said, folding his arms and pouting.

“Does that mean you _don’t_ want extra sweets?” Yurkosfsky asked.

“I didn’t say _that._ ”

“Then let’s go!”

The four of them started walking down the hall. Gilgamesh however didn’t move. Klaus moved to go retrieve him. He only made it two steps before O’Hara reappeared. Klaus pulled back before she could see him. “Gilgamesh? Aren’t you coming?” Behind her the other children returned as well.

“I – Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming. And, um. Actually, I like Gil a lot better.”

“Gil,” DuMedd said. “It fits you better.”

Gilgamesh smiled. “I think so too.”

DuMedd draped his arm back around Gilgamesh’s shoulders. “Come on Gil. Sweets wait for no man.” Gilgamesh laughed and let himself get pulled along.

The children left, this time Gilgamesh firmly in the middle of them. Klaus stayed where he was, letting the children get further and further away. He would talk to his son about his actions later.

**Author's Note:**

> Well I hope you enjoyed this story about Klaus being jealous of eight-year-olds. It's not the first time it's happened and it doubtless won't be the last. But no one was kicked off the airship this time so Yay! Progess!!


End file.
